Secure Border Initiative, Part 1

The United States Congress has decided to placate the millions of Americans who have been victims of border violence and violence at the hands of illegal aliens operating deep within our country. Congress now offers America's citizens a poltice of platitudes. But while Congress pretends to protect our borders, other groups have other plans.

 

The Secure Border Initiative (SBI) has been notionally proffered to solve our border security problems.

Protecting America from the violence to the south has inspired all sorts of earnest thought on what we should do. Some has made it to the popular press.

The SBI program – won by Boeing – is a program, a “plan” to use “technology” to stop Mexico’s invasion across our southern border.

To Boeing the effort seems to consist of two major tasks and a one minor task. The first task is to build a beauracracy to act as a cut-out between the U.S. Border Patrol agents on the ground and Washington’s vision of border reality. The second task is to create a network of integrated technologies to monitor the border and to validate the identities of those apprehended along the border. The third task is to create some few miles border barrier to show "progress" in actually slowing illegal border crossings.

In alphabetical order, Boeing has teamed with:

Centech Group
DRS Surveillance and Reconnaissance
Elbit Systems’ Kollsman Division
L-3 Communications Government Services.
L-3 Communication Systems
Lucent Technologies.
Perot Systems
Unisys
USIS.

The Cut-Out

At present, U.S. Border Patrol sectors depend upon other government agencies to implement the construction of their infrastructure. If the USBP needs a fence or a road then they can – for example -- call in the United States Army Corps of Engineers to go out to bid, let the contract, and manage the construction effort. This managing government agency then gets a “fee” from the total funding to manage the program. This “fee” seems to hover between ten and fifteen percent.

With Boeing now wedged between the USBP and Washington, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is out and Boeing has taken their place. One of the problems with this concept is that – Katrina not withstanding – the Corps of Engineers had some vague clue about what was needed and what would work along the border and as yet Boeing seems to remain clueless.

The good news for Washington is that all proposals, publicity, media focus, or embarrassing expose’s, all now drop at the feet of Boeing and so DHS is no longer the only target of derision. No longer do you talk to the Border Patrol or even DHS -- all border infrastucture questions go to Boeing.